Job 4:1 – Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,

Job 4:2 – If we assay to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved? but who can withhold himself from speaking?

Hello readers, new blog time today. I’ve been thinking as I’ve been going through the book of Job… I’ve been thinking that Job’s friends had a lot of knowledge. You can read all that Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar said… and there’s so much information in what they said. And actually, in and of itself, you can get a lot of out what they said. It’s funny how you can know some truths, or say some things which may be right in and of themselves… yet in the context of the conversation it all be totally wrong. So today I want to talk about so much knowledge, yet so little wisdom. After all, what’s the point of knowing stuff? You can be a know it all, yet incredibly dumb and make a plethora of stupid life decisions and also be a help to noone. It’s one thing to know stuff… and we live in the information age after all, everyone knows stuff, everyone in fact thinks they know everything… yet we seem to be dumber than ever. It is one of life’s great ironies that we become so foolish in the name of thinking we are so smart. Kids come out of school and universities thinking they’re so smart, but they’ve been so hopelessly led into the darkness while thinking they’ve seen the light. Today, Satan holds forth the light of knowledge, just as he held forth illumination to Eve in the garden of Eden. But just like Adam and Eve in seizing upon it, likewise we are so much poorer for it.

One wonders where Satan went in this story. He pops up at the start… but then you don’t seem to see him again. You can wonder where Satan was in this. Did he just strike Job with boils and be on his way? No, Satan never disappeared. I believe we see Satan all through this story. Satan used Job’s friends. What did Job’s friends do? They accused him. Isn’t that who Satan is? He is the accuser of the brethren. You know we should just park here and make sure we learn a critical lesson. Is Satan using you in other people’s lives? It is a huge warning. These were smart lads, yet Satan was using them to hammer Job. Imagine being bombarded with accusations when you know you’re innocent. Job was being tried because he was God’s best example, because he was so righteous… yet he was accused all through his trial of the fact this had all happened to him because he was so wicked. False accusations are horrible… and down to his very motives for what he did, Job copped them. Satan is so good at twisting it all on us. So Job tried pleading his cause. And then because he pleaded his cause, that made him guilty in Elihu’s eyes. Ever feel like you can’t win? Maybe that’s why sometimes we just have to wait for God to fight some battles that we cannot.

But today we are talking about so much knowledge, yet so little wisdom. People can know heaps of stuff, they can be full of information… yet so foolish. It’s one thing to know things, it’s another thing to know how to apply them, to relate information and knowledge to real life. For all their lyrical waxing, these friends of Job had no wisdom to apply all that information they had in their heads. In life, people learn things, they see things, they accrue information… and yet they can come to a completely wrong application and conclusion. How many people go through life and they go further and further from Jesus Christ and his word. Here’s an example. I can see all the fossils around the world and think hey, that’s proof for a global flood! But those same fossils others can see and be like, yep that’s proof for evolution. Scientists can have so much information, so much knowledge… yet be so far from the mark it’s dizzying. It’s not enough to have information, to have knowledge… to know stuff. It’s incredible when you consider that Job’s friends had learnt things, seen things, and knew things… yet they really didn’t know anything. Job’s friends had seen things in nature for example, and used them as examples when proving their (wrong) point to Job.

Job’s friends had a handle on some truths. So how did they end up so far from being able to give Job some good counsel, some good wisdom, to provide him with some real help for his really tough, dark phase of life? They were missing something clearly. Something to tie all that knowledge together. Something to make sense of stuff they knew. What ties it all together? Well, the what is actually a who. The who is a person, and that person is Christ. You see, wisdom comes from and is found in God. It’s not in us, it’s found in a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. And Jesus has spoken, and it’s been written down, so we can read what he has to say whenever we dare to dust off our Bible. And when you are right with God through his Son, when your sin is dealt with at the cross, when you are walking by faith… you’ll have wisdom for the journey of life. Because he is in you, and with you, and he knows EVERYTHING. And then you’ll be able to be a good friend to someone like Job. Head knowledge of stuff isn’t enough, salvation isn’t a who knows more game. Human wisdom is so limited, that’s why we need God’s wisdom, wisdom from above. And all this does show how important abiding in the truth of God’s word is, because Job’s friend had some truths, but they were missing big pieces of the whole picture, which completely skewed their thinking and counsel. We can get in to trouble when we pick parts of the Bible, but don’t take all of it. Remember, truth must be balanced, we are to understand Bible by comparing Bible to Bible, and forming a balanced understanding of truth.

Don’t forget, Satan deals in information and knowledge, he trafficks in it. Let’s remember back to the temptation of Christ. Satan had the audacity to come at the Lord Jesus Christ with Bible. Satan used true things, like God’s word… to tempt Jesus! The first thing we read about Satan in Genesis 3 is that he is marked by his subtlety. He’s good at manipulation, at sleight of hand, at trickery… he can do things without you realizing what he’s done. Satan did what lots of people do, he cherry picked from God’s word, picking a verse to try and get Jesus to do. People picks bits that suit them from God’s word for their agenda or what justification or end they require, but they’re not interested in ALL the Bible. Satan clearly exploited Job’s friends against Job. He used their pride, their know it all attitude, their flesh… and all that information they had became a weapon against Job. But no weapon formed against thee shall prosper the Bible says! Of course we know that this verse in the Old Testament is a wonderful promise to the nation of Israel, but it is also a principle for the believer today. There are all types of weapons designed by the enemy, designed to bring us down… but if you trust in Jesus Christ, no weapon can destroy you. For all their knowledge, it never formed an argument that Job could be like… hey that’s right. Things just didn’t add up.

Job’s friends had heaps of information, they had heaps of life experience, they had heaps of knowledge. But they applied it all wrong. You can be as intellectual as you want, but completely devoid of real wisdom, of knowing what to say, of being able to determine truth in real life situations, of having wisdom to deal with real life as it happens. And Satan ended up using these guys against Job. Satan tried to twist Job in a knot… to turns things upside down and sideways. He was trying to corrupt and pervert and confuse Job in the storm, and Job couldn’t see a way out. Things didn’t make sense. Satan’s so good at checkmating us. First he accuses Job of having the wrong motives for serving God to God. Then when bad happens to him, he flips it… Job this is happening to you because you’ve done something bad. People living in Satan’s kingdom are in darkness, and he wants to keep them there. People live lost in the darkness. Unable to find their way out. Satan will tempt you to sin, then make you feel guilty for doing it. You’ll wander circles to the grave. He’s against you friend. And if he can use three wise men, he can use you. It’d be horrible to live a life with so much head knowledge, and all that knowledge be put into furthering Satan’s cause. Let’s not forget, Satan is not “out there somewhere”, he’s in the church, he’s in the home, he was in the twelve, he knows Bible, and he brings a lot of information and knowledge to the table… all twisted, all manipulated, all out of balance.

Proverbs is the book on wisdom, and wisdom calls out to whoever will hear her voice today. Is she calling you? Can you hear her voice? Are your ears those blessed ears which are capable of hearing her voice? God wants us to be practically wise. To know, to understand and to be wise. We need to know stuff, then we need to understand stuff, and we need wisdom to be able to live it. People can be so full of head knowledge of things. These guys drew on examples in nature, they were able to relate things in nature to spiritual lessons, they used big words, they assented to God, they had noble intentions, they were sincere, they had life experience… they weren’t dummies. Yet look at what they were really saying to Job, it really was a load of rubbish. The problem is that most of us live Christianity purely in the domain of our heads… but God wants our heart. Proverbs 23:26 – My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. So while Job’s friend could speak great literary pieces, and while much of what they said seems ok at first glance… they really had very little wisdom, and that was why God was angry with them. People can be pretty impressive at face value, as these guys are when you read… and hey it looked like they were sticking up for God right! But for all their knowledge, these guys really had no wisdom for Job, and they really were just tools for Satan to use to try and bring Job down. Satan ultimately wants us not to be saved, not to know truth and to walk in it, he wants to keep us in darkness, and that darkness may be a world of information which makes you think a lot more of yourself than you really are. So much knowledge would be to know of Jesus Christ, yet so little wisdom would be to know all this, yet to end up in hell. So God, give us that wisdom from above.

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